


Hindsight

by gondalsqueen



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Abandonment, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Memories, Drinking, Parents and Children, Ponies!, Theft, Tw: Animal Death (sort of), Tw: snakes, barfights, blindman's bluff, bropilot culture, childhood crushes, family spats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-06-02 04:02:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6549919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gondalsqueen/pseuds/gondalsqueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Think of a memory from your childhood—quick. The first thing that comes to mind. Now hold it. How does that memory shape who you are now? Considering how much you’ve forgotten, why is this the one that you didn’t let go? </p>
<p>A series of scenes—one for each spectre—exploring how the child shapes the adult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hera

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the excellent [ Shannon Phillips ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ShannonPhillips/pseuds/ShannonPhillips) for her mad beta reading skills.

“Hush, little one, be strong and fierce. Hush, little one, be wild and free. Hush, little one, you’re not alone. Hush, little one, you’re here with me.” Father’s voice, a memory in her ear, echoes easy confidence. Because she was, she had been, strong and wild, back then. At least he’d spun that story since her babyhood, to train her into fearlessness in the face of a sharp, hot horizon line where everything has fangs.

She can’t think of the song anymore without segueing into that other memory. Much older. Nine? Ten? Learning to swim in the natural pools of the caverns, so warm with the soft white light from the crystals, the steady drip of water, the echoes of their laughter. The real pools, the natural wonders, glow clear all the way to the bottom. This is an offshoot, the water murky with moss and slimy between their toes, but still clean enough to swim in.

 Being bad—she remembers that. It’s supposed to be some big community-building trip, a vacation with the vaguest tinge of purpose, and even their parents have found time to come along. They’re being bad, they’re laughing _at_ someone, they’ve been horsing around because everything is fine. Hera doesn’t even see it first—she spots the sinuous black shape moving fast just as Shani screams, and that scream clicks into place in her head—savak. It’s a savak.

The kids scramble for land. Shani and Hera, waist deep in the middle, don’t stand a chance. The thing is swimming with a purpose, aggressive and at home in the water, hunting. They can’t make it to the rock three meters away, either—both of them know it in that deep down place that catches sight of movement and instantly tells you the odds.

But they do make it, floundering the last step to the boulder. It’s slick with moss, and Hera breaks the nail off her forefinger scrambling for a hold. Reaches back and pulls up the much bigger Shani. The rock won’t really hold both of them—they won’t fall as long as they’re careful, but they’ve only cleared the water by a few inches.

And then that creature jumps.

Hands empty, Hera screams, and it must not be used to loud prey under the water because that throws it off. It twists to a graceful landing and swims off downstream.

The water would have carried it. It doesn’t have to work so hard at swimming. It didn’t have to jump. The savak is…it is…it must be a meter long and deadly poisonous. It could just stretch up onto the rock and get her foot. She can feel every nerve in her clenched toes right now. It doesn’t have to work so hard for its food.

Then it doubles back for them. Shani’s foot is barely six inches out of the water. Hera can’t pull her up any higher, and in all honesty, she’s not willing to give up her perch and slip down into the water for Shani’s safety. She’s body-scared, self-preservation pushing out thought.

“HERA!” Her father’s voice, loud, echoing, from the shore. “Don’t. Move.”

He doesn’t sound afraid. He’s got a plan, then. Father’s never frightened as long as he has a plan. Okay. Her part in the plan is not to move.

The savak swims up beside them. No time. There’s no time for a plan. It’s here NOW and she’s going to die and the best course of action she can take is not to move. Her eyes open so wide she sees white on the edges, so wide she can see it without turning her head. Don’t slip. Hold steady. At her back, Shani is also a rock.

It continues upstream. This is a creature of deadly grace and it has no need to jump sideways against a current.

The body twists and coils. There, the savak seems to tell itself. This is far enough. It straightens and powers back towards them.

“Hera.” Her father, certain and reassuring. “Tae’s here. You’re my big girl. Don’t move.”

She doesn’t understand, but the two of them can take out whole droid armies. Okay. She can follow instructions. Sillier children might panic and die. She stands still as a statue.

It jumps, beautiful and terrible, right at her face. She catches a quick glimpse of unhinged jaws and fangs. Then its head disappears and something wet hits her cheek and lips and the body jerks up in an awkward, abrupt death throe.

The snap-bang comes immediately, the sound crackling off the cavern walls for some time afterwards.

What remains of the savak’s limp body floats away downstream. Now she can turn her head.

She sees Tae on shore, a sniper rifle to his shoulder, his eye obscured by its scope. Her father next to his friend, tense but observing the entire scene as if he controls what happens with the force of his will.

Tae is the better shot.

“You’re all right.” That’s her father’s voice again, in her left ear, steady. “You’re all right, girls. Climb down now.”

Hera doesn’t move. She needs to assess the situation. When Tae blew that thing’s head off, where did the poison go? Is it in the water? Is it splattered on her face and body? What if a fang is floating around? She doesn’t have on shoes.

Shani stays stiff behind her, arm clenched rigid around her own.

“Girls.” Everybody else watches them. Father’s voice stays even and patient. “It’s gone. You’re safe, now.”

Tae wades in, and Hera feels like she’s sagging in relief—Tae, who always looks out for her—but her weakness must be just a feeling, because she doesn’t slip from the rock. He’s here. He’s in front of them. “Come on, girls. You’re safe now.” He lifts Shani, then turns his back to Hera. “Hop on.”

“I’m NEVER going back in the water,” Shani vows.

“Hera.” Her father, still on land. The pit of dread opens again, small, but there. “You’re not hurt. Get back in and wade to shore.” The pit wells into her throat, a tangy taste of bile.

She doesn’t move.

Tae half-turns towards her father, though. Admonishing, or entreating. “Cham.”

“The kids felt perfectly safe before. There’s no more chance of savaks now than there was then. I won’t have her afraid of the water. You’ve been in that stream all day, Hera. Get back in, and you can get yourself to shore.”

Tae frowns, but knows better than to turn a protest into an argument.  

All right. She can’t stay here forever. What she wants is to be out of the water. All right. She can make that happen. Hera swallows that pit down hard—one two three go I said GO!—and jumps off the rock.

She doesn’t die.

After this she’s inoculated against the ways that a pounding heart can make you silly. When a TIE misses the cockpit by four meters, she shrugs it off so she can keep flying and shooting. With fast movement, you’re either predator or prey. Keep your eyes front. Tell yourself you’re the predator.

And when Kanan tells her to jump—even in those early years—even standing over a pit—she jumps. “Jump!” he yells over the wind. “Just jump! I’ll catch you!” But she doesn’t hear his reassurances, because she’s already flung herself far out from the ledge, into the open air. Reassurances are nice, but they won’t save people—only action will. And she has to be ready, she has to be brave. Somewhere some creature is always circling back around.


	2. Ezra

The murmur of their three voices carried Ezra towards sleep, the back and forth of conversation like rocking in a hammock. He would have been dreaming—would have missed what they said—except that the sharp rise in his father’s voice jarred him awake.

“He’s all we think about! Teaching Ezra to stand up for people in need.”

His mother, quieter, but now that he tried he could hear her: “We’re fighting for our son’s freedom.”

He understood all the words of course, but he didn’t understand what she meant when she put them together that way. He was free to do whatever he wanted, unless you counted all the things that they, his parents, made him do, like homework and eating lothpeas and _slowing down and answering our questions to our face, Ezra_. And he didn’t like when they talked about him as if he was some kind of cause, the same way he disliked being called in front of the class and forced to answer whatever question his teacher put to him. What if he didn’t want to be a good example? What if he knew different answers, instead? Couldn’t he just stay in his seat and do good work without everyone looking at him?  

Quiet voices. Then, “I am not, of course, an idiot.” And later: “…passes. Azadi if necessary. Yes, we’ve spoken with him. …Not just counting on luck. This is my son.”

Tseebo kept protesting because Tseebo was always afraid. Ezra turned over on his pillow, found the comfortable spot, and nursed his contempt. Tseebo never stuck his neck out for anything.

But this time something happened that unsettled him. This time he heard his mother’s voice, clear as day, saying, “We know. That’s exactly why it has to be you. Nobody else can keep him safe.”

Keep who safe? HIM, Ezra? That’s who she usually meant when the talk veered this way, but why would he need Tseebo for that? If anything, _he_ should be looking out for Tseebo. He didn’t like that, the idea of a world so desperate that he and Tseebo might have to run together. He didn’t want to imagine it. Still, he laid in the dark with his eyes closed for a long time, until after the house got quiet and still, before he finally fell asleep with his unease.

He woke in the morning with the same tight feeling running down his spine. His parents spoke up against bullies, and the bullies didn’t like that, and sometimes they all had to watch out when they went into the city as a result. But inside his house, they were supposed to be safe. His parents had talked like they weren’t safe, and now he didn’t know where to go to relax his guard.

Maybe that’s why he blew it at school and came home with a black eye and a red slip for fighting.

He delivered the slip to his mother without a word. She didn’t even yell: “Ezra, school is your job! The last thing we need is YOU attracting attention!” the way she had the last time he’d gotten in trouble. Instead, she gave him a cool cloth for his face, dabbed some Bactitrak under his eye, and got him a glass of juice before she asked, “What happened?”

Ezra knew what had happened, of course, but he hadn’t quite sorted out how to make it into a story yet, so he started with the important part. “It was Asa’s fault. He hit me.”

Mom raised the eyebrow that meant _I’m sure that isn’t the whole story_. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?” she said mildly, and he got angry about the whole thing again, and angry at her.

He hated everyone at that school. He hated when she didn’t believe him. He hated being managed. “He DID hit me!”

“Ezra.”

“Fine!” She’d see that it wasn’t his fault. She’d see that he was doing the right thing, and he’d been punished for it. “We were at recess, and Asa was pushing Jiylo, and I heard him say that when the new Imperial governor gets here, everyone who’s not human is going to get kicked off of Lothal.”

Mom’s cheek twitched like it did when she was angry—really angry—but he didn’t think it was at him. She sounded calm, but he knew better. “Then what?”

“Then I told Asa that wasn’t true, because you and dad said that we weren’t going to let that happen. That one person can’t come in and hurt our friends, because if we all stand together we can stop it.”

He waited for her quick flash of pride. He waited for her to tuck his hair back behind his ear and tell him, “Ezra, you’re growing up so fast,” or “Ezra, you’re my brave boy.” But she didn’t say anything. Instead she looked…well, not really sad, but…kind of sad. Not proud, anyway. “Wasn’t that right, Mom?”

“Yes, darling. That’s right.” But her voice stayed quiet. “Go on,” she said.

But Ezra didn’t want to go on. He didn’t want to tell her, _Then Asa said that you and dad were criminals and you were going to jail._ He wouldn’t say that out loud, not ever. So he skipped that part, and said, “Then Asa told her to eat mud.”

She waited for him for a long moment before asking: “And?”

The lie rolled off the tip of his tongue, so natural that he couldn’t resist. “And then he hit me.” But he must have hesitated for a second, or there must have been something weird in his voice, because Mom just said, “Ezra,” in that tone like she expected more of him.

“What?”

She looked at him.

“Okay, fine, I hit him! But he deserved it!”

“That’s not your decision.”

“Well, he did! And then he hit me anyway, and I pushed him down—but just to get away from him, Mom! And the kids started yelling, and the teachers came over.”  

“And that’s it?”

“Pretty much.”

“Pretty much?”  

Ezra wiped his nose on the back of his hand and felt a grim kind of cheer. This next part was good. “I guess when I pushed him he fell down so hard he hurt his butt. How do you even hurt your butt when you fall? I didn’t push him that hard. He’s way bigger than me, anyway.”

His mother frowned at him with the worried frown she always wore when he got extra lucky. He didn’t think that was fair. Why should he get in trouble just because he was lucky?

“Ezra…” His mother leaned her head against her hand. She did that when she was trying to figure out how to deal with him. Also when she was tired.

Well, he was tired, too. Tired of Asa and his friends being jerks, and tired of not being able to keep his mouth shut. But he was more mad than tired, and he knew that if given the opportunity (and he probably would be), he’d do it all again tomorrow. “Aren’t we supposed to fight to help people, Mom? That’s what you always say! How can I be in trouble for helping people?”

She sighed and rubbed her face, and he felt a little stab of guilt and sympathy and fear. “You are not in trouble for defending Jiylo. You are not in trouble for defending yourself. But I wish you hadn’t hit Asa.”

It wasn’t a question, and he didn’t know what to say in response.

She sighed again, and he watched her mouth change shape three times as she thought about different ways to tell him whatever was in her mind. Finally, she said, “There are all sorts of ways to fight. You never, ever have to let someone hurt you. Or hurt someone else. But… We don’t hit. Period. We don’t hit. You’re a strong kid, but you’re smarter than you are strong. Violence attracts attention. I mean… hitting gets you in trouble with all sorts of people. It makes your disagreement bigger, never smaller. What are you going to do when it’s just you, and there are ten other kids to fight?”  

“Knock them down on their butts,” he told her, unchastened. “Isn’t it right to hit if I’m defending myself? Or other people?” he added hastily, knowing she liked that.

“Well…” she considered. “Different people have different thoughts about that. Some people think you shouldn’t even swat a bug that stings you.”

“Well, I think it’s okay. And Asa’s a lot bigger than a bug.”

She shook her head at him. The first time he’d gotten in trouble for fighting, she hadn’t let him go until they’d talked it out—which meant until he’d convinced her that he agreed with her, a feat that mostly involved repeating back what she said. At this point, sometimes they had nice conversations, and sometimes she got upset and yelled, and sometimes she hugged him, and sometimes she kind of let it go. He wondered which one today would be. She kept trying to pull the pieces together in a way that made sense, and he didn’t know how to tell her that this stuff didn’t make any kind of sense to start with.

So he listened to her pronouncement instead. “Ezra, you have permission to do whatever it takes to look out for yourself. And Jiylo. And anyone else that needs it.”

He waited for the “but” that was sure to follow.  

“But—” There it was. “Never hit because you’re angry.”

Again, he knew all the words, but he wasn’t sure what they meant all crammed together like that. He’d hit because Asa was going to make Jiylo eat mud. And he’d hit because he was angry. He couldn’t stop being angry, and he wasn’t about to let Jiylo get her face shoved in the mud just because his mom said he shouldn’t get mad about things.

But all these little things that he’d heard lately were catching up to him, and he was worried about his mom and dad, so he just said, “Okay.” That seemed to make her feel better. “Okay, Mom. I’ll try not to get so angry about things.” _Can I go now?_ He wanted to ask, but he didn’t get it out there in time, because she was on to the next hard thing.

“Ezra…” The long pause told him he wouldn’t like this. “You know that it isn’t always safe to stand up for other people, right? It’s the right thing to do, but it can put you in danger.”

“I’m not afraid,” he told her. He wasn’t like Tseebo. Sure, he got hit sometimes, but that felt a lot better than just sitting down and swallowing his outrage.

“Well…sometimes, maybe, you should be. Not afraid, darling, but at least cautious. What your father and I are doing, when we broadcast…. That isn’t completely safe, either, for the same reasons. But, Ezra, _you_ will always be safe. We’ll always keep you safe. If something happens—if we can’t get back to you for a little while—go to Tseebo’s, okay? He’ll look out for you.”

And Ezra had answered, “Okay,” wanting that scary conversation to end as soon as possible. But a few months later, when he came home from school to find the door to his house kicked in and an empty stillness filling every room, he couldn’t find Tseebo. He knocked on Tseebo’s door. He looked in the usual places in the market and at the data center where he worked. Tseebo wasn’t anywhere.

He always thought he’d messed up. Maybe his parents got in trouble because of something he said in school, or something he did. Maybe he should have done a better job searching—Tseebo obviously couldn’t come and find him right then. It wasn’t until they met again—until he heard, “Tseebo failed. Tseebo was afraid. Tseebo could not raise Ezra Bridger,” that he realized what had happened. He’d been seven. SEVEN. The rage filled him and spilled over the top.

He shouldn’t have been surprised, really. He’d figured out a long time ago that his mother was wrong. You couldn’t all stand together if nobody else was standing up. And that’s where he’d stayed, for eight years—if not adult yet, more grown up than he’d been that day on the playground. Stooping so he didn’t get angry and stand up alone.

Of course, most of his new friends were tall. It felt good to stand again.


	3. Zeb

Lira-ne, the ceremonial mounts of the Lasan honor guard, stood twenty seven hands high on average. One could bear a royal guard in full armor, and if shod properly, would break the pavement before splitting a hoof. When they thundered into battle, the ground shook and their shoes gave off sparks of lightning. Of course, they hadn’t seen battle for six hundred years. In those last days on Lasan, they mostly marched around in parades.

Smaller versions were merely cute. Lucky children got lira ponies as pets.

Zeb wasn’t lucky. But his cousin was.

To hear them tell the story, the pony wasn’t that big. And Zeb had always towered over the rest of the kids his age. That’s probably why his mother felt safe lifting first him, then his baby brother, onto the pony’s back before instructing his father to take a holo of them.

He doesn’t remember the scale all that well, though he remembers the rest of it vividly. The sharp beep of the recording device, the pony taking off, the stab of relief as he realized that his mother had lifted his brother to safety. And then riding wild, bumping around on the unsaddled horse, grabbing a handful of mane.

“Fall off!” He could hear them behind him. “Fall off, Zeb!”

He didn’t HAVE to fall off. He had a good grip.

The pony bucked. He bounced but landed back on his seat.

“Let GO!”

Then again, if he didn’t let go now, how would he find his parents later, after it sped up? He unclenched his hands and flew off backwards just before a low tree branch would have taken him out.

Zeb landed on his head—or maybe the joint of his neck—but he doesn’t have a memory of the pain. Only his terrified mother, helping him up—“Does it hurt? WHERE does it hurt?” And his father, on his other side, gruff but relieved. “He’s awake and crying. Can’t be too bad.” The pony was long gone.

They walked home. Zeb remembers willing himself to sob the whole way. He remembers the small kitchen of his great-grandparents’ house, everyone gathering around and pressing him for answers that were becoming more and more unbearable. And his uncle, tall even when sitting, taking his hand and asking in that no-nonsense voice: “Garazeb. Where does it hurt?”

He had to tell them something. But revealing this private pain to so many waiting eyes—that made it all the more unbearable, and he sobbed in fury and heartbreak, “The pony doesn’t like me!”

His uncle’s laugh boomed around the room, bouncing off of walls, and for a moment Zeb hated him, hated being laughed at.  But San Orellios drew his nephew onto his lap and confided, “It’s okay, Zeb. The first time I rode that damned horse, she threw me, too.”

Had she really? He couldn’t fathom how that little thing had bucked his uncle’s weight. But that did make him feel a lot better. If she could throw a member of the honor guard…

“You know,” his uncle spoke again. “She’s still a child. She doesn’t know how to act. She wants breaking and gentling. You’re not the problem, son. She’s just got no manners. You want to come down over the next few months and help me train her?”

 _Breaking_ sounded bad. _I won’t hit her,_ Zeb vowed. _I won’t, no matter what they say. I’ll make her trust me and be her friend._ But he knew, even though he couldn’t resist trying, that it would never work. His friendship had already been rejected, and begging, hangdog, at the edge of the pasture wasn’t going to help. He’d been tried and found wanting.  

As it happened, he never got the chance to work with her, anyway. His uncle went back to his posting at the end of the week, and any talk of Zeb helping to train the pony was forgotten. She ran half-wild, a good game for the kids to chase and attempt to ride her. Probably the offer had never been serious.

As an adult, Zeb didn’t expect to make it into the Honor Guard. Objectively, he knew that his chances were as good as anyone’s—right family, right skill set, even the right temperament and build. But he didn’t take it as his due, and when his appointment was finally announced, he felt lucky and more than a little nervous that he had fooled them into accepting him.

He never thought of himself as a fake, exactly. He never doubted his ability to do his job—to do his job well, better than half the people around him—day in and day out. It wasn’t about the _job_. It was about the…choice. Zeb worried that he would fail because even if he became the best warrior in the history of the guard, his dumb luck was going to mess things up just when they needed it most.

Things don’t work out for Garazeb Orrellios. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know why all of these are such downers! That certainly wasn't the intention! Uhm...sorry?


	4. Sabine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early in her tenure on the Ghost.

“Because it is imPORTANT!”

Sabine has lost track of when the yelling started, but by this point in the conversation (interrogation), Hera’s voice has risen to a volume that vibrates the hull.

She doesn’t have to stand here and take this. “That’s the actual stupidest thing I’ve heard today.  I am never, ever, ever going to do what you say just because you say it.”

“If you plan to stay on this ship, that is exactly what you’ll do!”

Both jump guiltily as the door to the cockpit whooshes open and Kanan steps out, hands already raised in placation. “Whoa—whoa—whoa! I could hear you in the hold.”

Hera shoots him a dirty look. It doesn’t escape Sabine that Hera expects him to be on _her_ side. 

It doesn’t escape Kanan, either. He dodges, changing the subject, tapping the carbon scoring on Sabine’s chest plate and commenting, “That’s a nasty hit.”

“Exactly,” Hera jumps on the topic. “It wouldn’t _be_ there if she would shoot when I tell her to shoot.”

“I didn’t even have a visual on the target!”

Hera opens her mouth to return that combative tone, catches herself, and takes a deep breath instead. Great. She’s going from shrieking older sister mode to lecturing parent mode. When she speaks, she’s a little calmer, and Sabine does a poor job of swallowing the flash of anger in her throat. She hasn’t calmed down. She doesn’t want Hera to be calm, either. “We would have brought you aboard the ship, no matter what,” Hera tells her (calmly). “We would never have left you there. But Sabine—you’re a part of this team because I thought—we thought—that you could handle yourself in tight spots. I can’t take…someone so young into missions like these if you can’t hold up your end. Part of that is following orders so you can keep yourself safe.”

“I did keep myself safe!” Sabine protests. “I _have_ armor!”  

“Yes, but I don’t,” Hera points out. “If I think you’re going to wait until you get shot, I won’t be able to duck next time. I need to know that you have my back, too.”

Great, now she’s trying the guilt. Sabine looks to Kanan for support, but he stares straight ahead, studiously neutral. She takes a deep breath, and when she speaks, her voice sounds calmer as well. “I am never going to shoot without an explanation.”

Hera doesn’t actually smack her palm to her own face, at least. “It’s a firefight. We don’t have time for explanations.” But Kanan clears his throat awkwardly, and Hera’s face softens just a little. “Sabine. You can always ask questions, and I will answer any of them that I can. Just not always in the moment. We need to get the job done first.”

Sabine can feel her own eyebrow raise, she feels that snotty teenager look creep across her face against her will. “Did you _actually_ just tell me to shoot first and ask questions later?”

Oops. There was Hera trying to be nice, and Sabine has just thrown it back in her face. Still, if that’s her idea of nice… No, Sabine isn’t going to _show_ any regret.

Hera’s face hardens again. That means it’s time for Sabine to make her exit before the yelling starts. “Anyway,” she tosses back over her shoulder on her way out of the cockpit. “I used to be the type who followed orders! I’ll bet you would have liked me better then!”

It occurs to her five seconds later that they might not see that as an insult.

It’s just… Kanan, she gets. Hera… Hera’s nice and all. She clearly wants to do the right thing. Hera’s not going to mislead her on purpose. She’s just so…

…She’s just so sure of herself and her cause and she thinks she’s perfect. Sabine had been baiting Hera before, but she probably would be fine with orders and military procedures, given different circumstances. She’s the least rebellious rebel Sabine has ever met.

She rearranges art supplies in her bunk, banging cans around for five satisfying minutes before the quiet knock on the door indicates that Kanan’s come to check on her. “Hey,” he says (quietly). “You want to talk about it?”

 

…

 

“Use this.” Her weapons master tapped her temple, admonishing her for the thousandth and last time. “This is the difference between a soldier and a warrior. A warrior thinks. You’re an intelligent young lady, and you _should_ ask questions.” Then he stepped back, folded his arms, changed tacks. “But be careful. Don’t ask during battle. Not in front of anyone who isn’t family. Not until later, in private.” And thirteen-year-old Sabine had bristled at the idea of keeping her mouth shut, but much stronger than the bristly feeling was the pride she took in being the very best warrior her clan had to send. Well, the best warrior in her year, anyway.

They sent her off to the Academy with high hopes and closed lips.

 

…

 

There wasn’t much to question at first, anyway. Boring, easy lessons. Firing at targets. Drills. She got to skip a year.

And then the training simulations started.

The pulse of the generator like a primitive drum. The purple black lit by strobes. The high walls on every side—a maze for the cadets to play lab rat in. Sabine knew it was designed to intimidate them, and she supposed some of these kids were only a year into their combat training, but… the whole thing seemed like a joke. Like the laser tag games she’d played as a child.

Still, she’d liked those games, and this kind of atmosphere would get anyone’s heart going. She took a corner and hid, then checked her wrist monitor with a grin on her face. Five targets for each cadet, increasing in level of difficulty. She watched the red blip, unable to hear the beep in all this ambient noise. Great. This one was coming to her. Wait, and wait…

She ducked out, blaster ready, and shot at a scrabble in the street, just below head height.

The red dot disappeared. Target eliminated.

Well, that had been… strange.

Okay, new target acquired. Time to get moving.

Sabine darted between walls and around corners, moving fast. Presumably some of these marks would be threats—or some of the other players might target her—but she hadn’t seen anything like that yet. And it felt good to run, the wind cooling her neck in the artificial night.

Through her ear comm, Ketsu laughed in triumph and boast. “Just got my third one, sweet young thing. You’d better catch up.”

 _Crap_ , said her inner voice. And _Oh yeah?_ said the other one.

Second target approaching—time to pick up the pace. She leveled her blaster at an alley. Presumably this one would present at least a little bit of a challenge.

Visual confirmation.

It didn’t move like a predator, exactly. It didn’t move like prey, either. She couldn’t see much beyond a shape in this arena, but something about that form raised her protective hackles. Deep instinct said _Don’t shoot._

It moved like a drunk… kitten? She sidled closer. She couldn’t get a clear visual, but it moved like a kittenish thing.

What the kriff kind of joke was this supposed to be?

Ketsu, in her ear. “Four! It’s one thing to let me beat you, ‘Bine. That was inevitable. But now you’re just getting your ass whipped.”

The generator pulsed. The strobes flashed. This was all a simulation, anyway. This was just a simulation.

Why would they simulate _this_?  

She shot.

 

…

 

“What kind of animal was it?” Kanan asks, all casual interest.

“I don’t know.” Sabine tries not to snap. She’s not angry with him, just ashamed. Anyway, she’d much rather the question than any soppy platitude.  

“Was it a simulation?” Kanan is great. He’s great. He never pulls any punches.

“Yeah.”

“Then…” He searches for a conclusion. “It turned out okay.”

“No, that’s not the point!” Now she _is_ snapping.

Kanan runs his hand back over his hair and lets out a tired breath. He seems more like an adult than usual right now, and she’s sorry for putting him in that role. “What is the point then, Sabine?”

She's not too sorry, though, because she still thinks that she's right. “They got me to do something really…questionable. No. That’s not it. They got me to do something wrong. And then they made it okay. That time. Kanan, that was just one time.”

“All right…” He’s thinking on his feet. “All right, I can see where you’re coming from. And you think Hera’s going to ask you to do something wrong?”

“Is she asking, or is she ordering?”

“Uh uh. No dodging the question. You think she’s going to order you to do something wrong, then?”

“No, Kanan, I _don’t_ think that. But I ignored the warning signals before. I don’t take orders anymore.”

He nods slowly, but it’s the kind of nod that means he’s mulling things over, not agreeing with her.

Sabine takes the opening. “So would you just… Go tell her that?”

This gets her a short laugh. “Kid, have you not learned by now that I don’t make the rules? Anyway, she’s got a reasonable point.”

“Maybe, but so do I.”

“Listen, I’ll talk to her, and it might help make her happier about all of this. But it’s not going to change the bottom line. We have to know that you’re solid out in the field. And you have to trust Hera to have your back. In more ways than one. She’s never led me astray.”

That does mean something, actually. She manages a wobbly smile. “Thanks, Kanan.”

The charming girl act doesn’t placate him. “So. You think you can trust us, at least while we’re out there?”

“Maybe. Eventually.”

“Sabine.”

“Okay, okay. I think I can…try.”

That’s the best offer Kanan's going to get, and he can see it. He rises to go, but cuffs the side of her head playfully on the way out. “You’re something else, kid. You know that?”

Somehow, Kanan’s sympathy always comes out in the form of approval, which is much better than actual sympathy. She rolls her eyes so she doesn’t blush and gets a laugh from him as he goes.

Approval for _good_ behavior is familiar. But this…this is something new.


	5. Chopper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: Mild-ish warnings for some strong (Star Wars universe) language, some non-graphic sexual situations, and theft.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaah HAHA Nels, he’s shiny!”

C1-10P identified his master’s name. The color of the human’s coverings registered orange, and this information helped him confirm that these organics, like his master, were pilots. The sound, his databanks identified as “laughter.” An often involuntary expression of amusement or joy. Affirmative! His assimilation into his new role was exceeding expected standards.

One of the pilots—designation: human male--patted his chassis with an appendage. “Aww, this one’s real purty. Fresh outta the factory, even got a new coat of polish on him.” He showed his teeth to C1-10P’s master in an expression that the droid recognized as a smile. “Good luck working out the bugs up there, bud. I hope he learns fast.”

His master assumed a straightened posture, often indicative of pride or bravado or facing a perceived threat or presenting to an audience or discipline. “I know how to train my droids, Knox. You can just take a hike to your own plane, and let me know how much backup your mouth gives you out there.”  

The sentient known as Knox emitted a small laughter.

“C’mere, Chopper,” said his master, looking at him. “We’re just going to take her up for a test run today. I’ll show you your seat.” Then he spoke to another organic, at a louder volume. “HEY! Jon! You got an arm to lift this little guy into place?”

Another orange-suited human male pilot spoke. “You sure you got all the pieces of the last one out of there, Nels?”

“Shut up.”

“He SHOULD be good at training droids, the way he’s been burning through astromechs this year.”

C1-10P felt a surge of self-approval at his ability to recognize the expression on his master’s face. Warning! Droids were well-programmed to recognize “warning.”

“Ooooooh look at his face, Jimmi, you’d better put a gag in it. That last one was his one true love.”

“Three different women in the cockpit last night, and the love of his kriffing life is a droid.”

“Hey, didn’t it shift your tail so it could take the blast for you?”

“Saved his karking li-ife.”

C1-10P identified this new sound as singing. An expression of intense emotion and aesthetic pleasure in tonally modulated vocal form.

“Shut UP!” Displeasure from his master, but he observed that it was directed over his head, at his master’s peers. “I swear to gods, if you guys don’t lay off the new droid poodoo, you’re going to find your steering sticks right up your asses.”

The pilots laughed, though Master Nels’s expression had not been amusing. “You guys are assholes,” said one of them, in moderate tones that indicated his lack of investment in the conversation.

C1-10P’s master turned to him. “C’mon, buddy. You’re not going to get blown up out there today. We’re just going for a little test run. You need to get used to real flying instead of those factory settings. You know what ‘fly loose’ means?”

C1-10P did not think he would be capable of operating an x-wing starfighter unless firmly connected to the ports. He expressed as much to his master, earning a brief laugh. Approval. “It’s an expression. Let’s get you hooked up. We can talk about expressions.”

During the brief period of his insertion into the astromech port, C1-10P devoted unused processors to integrating new information with long term programming. “Him.” “He.” “Guy.” C1-10P==designation male.

 

…

 

“Astromechs. Are the best kriffing droids in the galaxy.”

Chopper knew that his master was correct, but he also knew that the veracity of this statement was incidental. Although Nels Braxon often worked in extremes, he didn’t get so hyperbolic about droids unless he’d been drinking.

Which he had. “You know why astromechs are the best kriffing droids in the galaxy?” Master Nels tapped Chopper’s leg strut with the bottom of his beer bottle. “Hey. Chop. You know why?”

Chopper answered in the affirmative. Of course he did.

“Because you’re always computing all this poodoo,” Nels told him anyway. “You gotta be able to make these crazy long calculations so we don’t get spaced on a jump. And what do you do with all that brainpower when you’re not running hyperspace jumps?” He paused dramatically. “Nothing! How boring is that! Do you ever get bored, buddy?” Nels didn’t wait for an answer. “You guys are always calculating stuff, aren’t you? No way you take time off from that, unless the Republic’s got you running some kind of projections for them on your off hours. Got everything figured out down to the last number.” He swigged the end of the bottle and thunked it on the counter of the bar behind them. “Smartest kriffing droids in the galaxy.”

Chopper recognized repetition as a hallmark of the organic condition known as inebriation. It involved using mild toxins to slow the connections made between synapses and reduce optimal biological functioning, and it was extremely pleasurable, right up to the point where organics became aware of the toxins and got sick. His master, currently stumbling off to find a game of pool which he would lose, would not reach this point for several hours still. Chopper locked his feet down—this made him harder to steal in such a dive—and turned his observation inward. He could search the holonet for spice trade patterns. Nels had some ideas about a concept he called “hustling” that Chopper thought could be applied much more widely, to entire underground trade networks, given enough time and predictive power.

In organic terms, he wasn’t paying attention, so he didn’t see the point where the conversation became a bar fight in the making. In fact, he didn’t notice anything wrong until the crowd drew back fast, leaving his master and a grizzled human in the middle of a depopulated valley, a feat only organics could accomplish in a room this crowded.

“Whoa!” Master Nels’s voice raised several decibels, a sign that Chopper (and everyone else) should pay heed. “I thought she was a free agent, man.”

Chopper’s auditory sensors didn’t pick up the next phrase, only the last word, growled out in an Alsakan accent—“wife!”

Then Master Nels spoke more quietly, but Chopper’s sensors were attuned to his speaking by now. “—Just saying, she really ought to be giving you a cut.”

“Oooooooh,” the crowd leaned in with anticipation, just as the Alsakan’s fist shot out at a 47 degree angle and let his master have it.

Master Nels took many side missions that Chopper didn’t see much use in. He must have had SOME goal, though, because he was always willing to put his life in danger for them.

Like now—fists wound in the pliable material of his master’s shirt, the Alsakan dragged him off the floor where he’d laid him out with the punch, lifted him, and threw him against the pool table. Chopper, with scanners far superior to the eyes of most organics, saw Nels’s tactical advantage before anyone else did. He came back up with a cue and broke it across his opponent’s head.

Really, he wasted far too much time on these endeavors of a purely physical nature. Chopper would have been annoyed if he wasn’t such a loyal droid.

Take now, for instance. Nels wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist, spitting blood and some pulpier matter that registered as a probable tooth. “CHOP!” he called. (Spit.) “Get in here, buddy! You got my back, or what?”

Chopper knew how important truthfulness was in a combat situation. He also knew that this sort of diversion conflicted with his primary directive, and he said as much.

Nels kicked the Alsakan in the crotch, yelling, “We don’t have a karking mission right now!”

Damage to an astromech unit would endanger future missions.

“You coward!” Nels had to interrupt their conversation for a moment to take a punch in the stomach. “Self-preservation isn’t even one of your—(unh)—major directives!”

Chopper reported that it was, in fact, his third directive.

“What about me?” His master found an ale bottle and smashed it over his opponent’s head. He dropped it rather than brandishing it as a weapon, though, a tactical move Chopper wasn’t entirely certain he approved of. This was already one of THOSE fights. “I get hurt, you’re gonna have a kark of a hard time doing the mission.” A pause for a knee to the stomach. “You wanna do your mission, you’re supposed to protect me, you kriffing—” cough, cough, “—traitor droid.”

Oh. OH. The human equivalent of an internal alert, signaling realization. By now, Chopper knew better than to take his master’s casual name calling too seriously. But he did have a point, one with some logical merit.

People could be worth protecting, if those people had uses.

Of course, now Master Nels was too occupied to continue pursuing that line of argument—the Alsakan had caught him by the neck and was holding him up against one of the support pillars of the bar.

Temporary decision reached. Updating programming and filing away for future examination. For the sixty-fifth time, Chopper doubted the data that told him droids could not get tired. He searched his banks and came across the term “world-weary.” Then he put his new piece of programming into place, drew back, accelerated to ramming speed, and shocked their opponent upon impact. Gluteus maximus—the largest and most accessible muscle in the bodies of many organics.

The man let his master go with a howl, knocking Chopper back so hard that his logic or auditory circuits must have taken some damage, because he could observe his master gasping for breath as he kicked his prone opponent, but he could hear, somewhere in his internal circuits, a triumphant howl in Master Nels’s voice: “Woo hoo! Right in the ass!”

 

…

 

Today’s supplemental mission didn’t go as planned. This happened so frequently that Chopper had months ago prepared subroutines to activate when Master Nels’s special projects ran into difficulties. Activate subroutine: Disappointment. Activate subroutine: Escape plan.

Chopper had waited the full 15 minutes that the plan had called for before slipping into the café’s kitchen area, though he could have done it in under three. He rolled steadily past the dishwashing, baking, and cleaning droids, plugged into the socket at the back of the kitchen, and hacked the security wall that kept casual customers in the dining area from the financial records. None of the kitchen droids would have been able to perform such a hack, and it would take a rare organic to execute these maneuvers. For an astromech, though, the job was the work of less than one minute. He downloaded the account numbers and passcodes, drained the accounts, then left through the back door and waited for his master in the alley. 

 “Easy peasy” Master Nels called this type of theft, which meant that they used basic, time-honored plans—divert and get out fast. Chopper had beeped a more accurate vocabulary suggestion—“time-worn”—but Nels laughed him away. So Chopper found it easy to avoid detection. But a data breach of that level—well, a manager would find it in the café’s systems before long. Making a quick escape with the data was vital.

His master didn’t make the rendezvous point, but after twenty minutes, the authorities did. Chopper played defective as they threatened to melt him down and use the scrap metal for toilets in municipal pools. He updated his internal systems to give this particular precinct credit for creativity, but couldn’t bring his subroutines for intimidation online. He heard worse than this every shift. Humans were impatient, and when they got impatient, they made hollow threats. As predicted, these authorities just hauled him off to impound.

Sometimes their supplemental missions went flawlessly—often when Master Nels listened to Chopper’s input on the details, as he had difficulty holding more than ten or twelve factors in working memory at one time. More and more often, though, he simply didn’t show up for his end of the operation.

Activate subroutine: Disappointment. Active subroutine: self-reliance.

This time, at least his master made it late. Chopper had not yet worked his way through an escape plan when Nels showed up with enough credits to get him out of impound. Yes, officer, I’ll have him checked out right away. No, officer, he frequently runs off with my keycards, but he’s never tried anything like this before. Eccentric. Yessir, he took a hit during the bombing run last week. Poor little guy. A real hero. Nosir, he’s not MINE, exactly.  Nosir, credits are no problem, he’s Republic property.

His master talked his way around to that last piece of information, and Chopper was free, Nels grinning as they walked down the dark and glistening pavement to the nearest subway stop. “Sorry I didn’t make it today, pal. What was that, like fifty thousand credits down the drain? I was all set to head out the door and Viv started in on one of her drama shows. Whooee, probably safer that you were locked away in here!”

Chopper reminded his master that a droid left in impound for more than twelve hours was hardly safe, accompanying his admonition with a swift jab to the calf.

He got a good natured laugh in return. “Better impending doom than certain doom, buddy. You remember that one time you were with me and she started in throwing the lamps? And she didn’t even take the power sources out! Had the whole place zapping.”

Master Nels knew very well that droids did not remember and forget. They simply recalled and replayed the information from their memory banks, with no degradation in the quality of detail. Chopper wondered aloud whether his master was being stupid or simply lazy in his speech.

Nels swept aside these technicalities with a grand wave of the hand. “Anyway, today was even WORSE than that. She said—get this! She said I wasn’t worth my backtalk, that she wanted something IN the flight jacket for a change. Can you believe that?”

Chopper chortled. He had stood guard for Viv and Nels many time. This particular associate was smarter than his master, although unpredictable and violent in temperament. He had long ago deemed the risk not worth the association. Her ripostes could be entertaining, though.

“Yeah yeah yeah. Well, I had to get all my stuff out fast after that. You know what else she said? You’re going to LOVE this one. She said—she SAID I wasn’t even a real Republic pilot, just some outer territories Rimjob recruit. Can you imagine calling ME that?” Nels touched a hand to his chest in a gesture that indicated he was the pinnacle of wounded sophistication.

Chopper practiced his sarcasm subroutine and pointed out that droids weren’t programmed to imagine things.

 “Well, we’re done with her. Back to base, anyway. We’ve got an early patrol today. Lucky thing YOU don’t need to sleep, at least.”

The subway dumped them out at base a half hour early, the chronometer reading “morning,” but the sky still black and streetlit. They were greeted at the check-in desk by an administrative legend known only as “Maiv.” Well, not _greeted_ , exactly. She gave them her characteristic baleful expression, annoyed at being called upon to do something. Master Nels gave her his characteristic shit-eating grin as she processed his ID.

She snorted, unimpressed. “You look rough. Must be a morning shift.”

“Yeeeeah,” Nels drawled. “Long night. You got us checked in?”

She glanced at the display. “Nope. You two are headed down to maintenance.”

“Maiv. We’re scheduled to fly patrol this morning.”

In all his years of accumulated logs, Chopper had never once observed this organic to display sympathy or bend the rules. Today proved no exception. “Not anymore you’re not. That one—” she stabbed a long fingernail in Chopper’s direction—“got himself flagged last night. On report for illegal activity. Sketchy programming. Then some intern ran a scan overnight and discovered that—get this—he had NEVER had a memory wipe. How’s that for illegal?”

“No way is he getting a wipe; I just got him trained!” Only with Maiv did his master’s voice sound like a whine.

“Cry me a river, princess. Look, you know the rules. Every droid, every six months. Get your tooshie down there.”

His master’s face wore a look that he knew well by now. Stubborn. _Warning_. “You know what? Thanks, but no thanks. Tell ‘em I called in sick today.”

Maiv snorted. “I’ll tell them you called in hung over. It’ll be easier to swallow.”

“Must be a morning shift,” Nels shot back at her. “Come on, Chop. We’re out of here.”

“Hey!” Maiv called at his retreating back. “They’re gonna dock your pay!”

“They can dock my ass!”

“That’s the idea!” The door closed on her shout, cutting her off so that Chopper’s auditory sensors picked up only Nels’s own grumbling—“Put in all your time getting a droid the way you want him and then they want to slag all your efforts, kriffing uninspired idiots don’t know what it’s like up there…” He cut off, raised his voice to a decibel meant for communication.  “C’mon, Chop. We’re going over to Marin’s house.”

Chopper fired a question at his master, who, after all, had difficulty with long-term planning and cognition. Were they leaving the military? Master Nels wasn’t above petty theft, but… Chopper devoted quite a few of his circuits to wondering about the logistics of stealing himself from the government.  

“What? Nah. They’re only going to ground us from daily patrol. Our papers are already through for the Rodia mission, and we’ll be there a good six months. They won’t remember anything about it when we get back, wait and see. Too many droids to keep up with.”

Chopper observed that this instance of illegal activity was directly traceable to his master. If somebody in inventory _did_ keep up with all of the droids…

Nels shut him down flat. “Yeah, well, screw them. Somebody ever tries to wipe your whole brain out, you shock ‘em right in the balls and then you run like hell.”

 

…

 

“Bless her heart,” Nels used to say, usually about some girl he’d made cry (usually about the kind who wasn’t going to come after him with an ice pick later). “Bless your heart,” he’d once told Chopper, watching and laughing, as he careened headlong into some disaster he couldn’t recover from on his own. When Chopper pointed out that droids did not have hearts, Nels had laughed louder and sputtered out, “Bless your little motivator, then.” (From then on, he enjoyed telling everyone, “bless your little motivator,” far more than they enjoyed hearing it.)

The units of speech couldn’t be parsed separately. Nels was not blessing these acquaintances—at least not entirely. He was laughing at their pain. He was allowing it to continue. But at the same time, he _was_ expressing some kind of camaraderie. Some humans could laugh most easily at the pain of their associates.

A droid, Chopper never used this phrase. His scorn took a far more direct route. In his early years, such a revelation would have overwhelmed his circuits, but by the time he realized that he was not simply an extension of his master’s personality, he had endured enough charm and disappointment that his core identity took no lasting damage (though he did often follow Nels’s advice to shock people and run like hell).

“Bless your little motivator” did start his gears spinning on the subject of motivators and motivation, though. Nels Braxon’s motivator impelled him towards goals that Chopper could not always share. By the time his liver finally failed and Chopper was given to a new pilot (this one a child in an underfunded war far too old for him), Chopper knew that his motivator activated for very little except survival—and the complimentary goal of acquisition—and the slightly lesser satisfaction of a good joke on an idiot.

When he collided with the ground on Ryloth, his motivator stopped.

When it started working again—creaking and substandard, the nightmare patch-job done on him literally the work of a child with broken tools—the first piece of data that sprang back was Nels’s signature phrase—“Bless her little motivator.”

His own motives never changed. But it could be entertaining to tag along with organics from time to time, especially ones that afforded him so many opportunities to zap pompous asses. And while Chopper had bumped up against too many of the galaxy’s rough edges to invoke the phrase “loyal droid” without several layers of sarcasm subroutine, he knew the rarity and value of a loyal master.

Now, if he could only get her trained the way he wanted before her faulty selflessness subroutine got them all sent to the scrapheap…


	6. Kanan

“Tig,” said the younglings, but some of the later recruits, who had come to the temple only a year or two before, said “tag” instead. If you were from the Mid Rim or out, you said, “Tag.”

Caleb liked this game. When they were so small, the Masters still allowed them plenty of unstructured time on the vast atrium playground, and playing still meant _finding_ new things.

So he let himself get caught, because he’d rather seek than avoid, anyway, and because Ailie was playing. Ailie had come to the temple only months ago, bringing her dark, star-mirror eyes with her. She cried when the other younglings’ feelings were hurt and refused to cry when she didn’t get her own way. And sometimes when they built block towers together her hand brushed against Caleb’s, because she wasn’t used to building with only her mind, yet. Ailie didn’t care. The tower fell over and she laughed, and instead of venting his frustration and kicking at the blocks as he might have otherwise (for Caleb didn’t like to fail), he laughed, too.

So Ailie played tig with them. And like Caleb, she wouldn’t mind getting caught. She’d laugh close to his face, then run away for the joy of running.

Chesed, who had caught him, slid the blindfold into place. Caleb saw brown cloth and the bristle of eyelashes. Then he closed his eyes and stopped trying to see, and the world went dark.

He took a deep, slow breath, and the stars winked on—first the ones near him, then others, in bright rings outward, to the edge of the playground. His friends, glowing soft or sharp or flickering, each star different.

A girl shrieked, “He’s moving!” and they all started to move, circling him, dancing around like the bright flecks in Ailie’s black eyes. He knew who he was seeking and what her star would feel like—steady, delighted, threaded with something different, something not quite Jedi yet. But he had to search each one of their signatures separately, and so many had come out to play today. And each time he came close to a group of children, they shrieked and flitted around and distracted him.  

Caleb stumbled, hands forward, trying not to catch anyone accidentally. They parted before him and reformed in new patterns. He rammed his toe into a bar of the monong gym and heard laughter in front of him. Okay, it was a dumb mistake.

He could do better than this. He could find her. He just had to think—think about arms the color of storm and water, think about the tiny quirk of a shared smile, think about eyes all dark and dazzle. So he did. And for a moment something slid into place: only serenity, only serenity. He was reading the playground with the Force—just with the Force, like they always did—but he’d graduated from sounding out to full paragraphs.

The brush of her arm, warm and solid, blue pewter. He’d done it.

He opened his eyes.

Kanan let out a harsh breath, alone in the dark of his bunk. He could navigate through the Force, like sonar, but it wasn’t the same. He wanted to SEE them again. He had to remember how to open his eyes.


End file.
